Originally Posted by Neil G
When an Arsenal or Man United player has the ball in the opponents' half, he is far more likely than one of our players to have at least one team-mate within 20 yards of him at the most, running into space and ready to receive the ball. That's not down to the quality of players they have in their team, it's down to the way the team is set up to play. And if you think only teams with top players are capable of doing that, then I can point you in the direction of Everton, Wigan under Jewell, and Reading last season (haven't seen much of them this season). With all of these sides, you are / were more likely to see men moving around more purposefully off the ball, creating angles and pulling the opposition out of shape than you do when watching us. They don't have the quality to hurt teams as much when they get the ball in dangerous areas, but they give more options to the player in possession.
If we played more like that then our quality could really hurt teams. This side of our game has improved in the latter half of the season with the new system which can be a bit more fluid in the attacking third than 4-4-2, as TK421 says, and it should get better still when we have Agger back. I think there is still a lot of room for improvement though.
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we're certainly more direct than united and arsenal, but i think we're also very capable of playing it on the floor too. i don't see it as a problem at this stage and think it's very much part of the way many of the great liverpool sides played. it was only really kenny's side of the mid-80s that played consistently sumptuous football.
i think the attacking side of it is something that will continue to devlelop with quality of players and greater defensive confidence anyway. for all ferguson's attacking intent it wasn't until he added carrick, vidic, van der saar and evra that the current side that they really started to dominate games consistently. the same could be said about pallister, bruce and schmeicel in previous generations.
the team rafa had at valencia with aimar, vicente, barraja et al was all about short, quick passes.
i really don't believe any of the other sides you mention pass and move better than this liverpool side, although they may be more intense in their approach. the ability to slow a game down - which is something i think we're probably better than anyone else in the league at bar chelsea - has served us really well in europe and isn't something i'd want to see us abandon in the league. we just need to keep adding the right players.